


Gale's Worst Year Ever

by 2pencilfan



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 09:06:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2304236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2pencilfan/pseuds/2pencilfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 74th Annual Hunger Games through Gale's eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Reaping

Forty-two times. My name was placed in the bowl forty-two times. And as I’m walking down the street towards the Reaping, my shoes seem to echo the words. Stupid shoes. They’re way too stiff and tight. They’re hand-me-downs and I would so much rather have my boots. At least this is my last year.

  
The thought is both terrifying and comforting. On one hand, there’s not a chance of me ever being brutally murdered on live television. On the other, this is the last of the tessarea I’ll get. We’ll get. I refuse to let Rory or Vick take any. As I get closer to the Justice Center, I start looking for Katniss and Prim. I remember Rory’s first year, last year. It was hell. At least Prim doesn’t have her name in more than once.

  
I think that I see her light blue dress between the rows of people. When we get into the rows, I know I’ll be able to see her. We stand at the same place every year.

  
Her eyes meet mine as I hear the stupid woman from the Capital say the same thing she always does. Katniss looks scared. I don’t blame her. I feel like throwing up. She has less chance than I do, which is good. I don’t know what I would do without her. I remember her sneaking around my traps all those years ago and how she looked so comfortable and, not to sound cliche, I kind of knew that she was the one I wanted to run away with. I’d been daydreaming about it for years, but that’s when it felt real. I could really do it.

  
We should have run away this morning. We should have brought the little ones with us through the fence and run and taught them to hunt. Our odds would be much better than here. Katniss and I could definitely make it. The only potential problem would be clothes, but Katniss could probably come up with something. I just want to make one thing clear. When I say I’ve imagined it, I mean I’ve actually imagined it and figured out exactly what we would do and how much food we would need to eat to make it. Vick doesn’t eat much for a ten-year-old, but maybe if he finally had enough to eat, that would change.

  
“Everdeen!” The trill cuts through my figuring like a dagger.

  
All of the air immediately drops out of my body. What did she say? My eye flies over to Katniss, but she isn’t looking at me. She’s panicking and looking down the aisle and I follow her gaze. It’s Prim.

  
At first, I feel so relieved, that it’s not Katniss, but, when I look back over at Katniss, I feel horrible. She is pushing and fighting her way forward and I know that her world is falling upside down.

  
Then she screams out the two worst words that I have ever heard in my life.

 

“I VOLUNTEER!”

 

The next few seconds are a blur. Prim starts shrieking and, without my knowing it, my legs run up to her and I grab her. She’s much lighter than I expected, but she fights me. I let her, but as I carry her away, I look back and see Katniss climbing up the stairs and I realize that I carried away the wrong sister.

As soon as I get her away, Prim runs to her mother. I stand there for a second, not sure what to do, but I return to my place. The blood is pounding in my ears, so I can’t hear a thing, but I see Effie walking over to the boy’s bowl and I realize that I could save Katniss. I could volunteer for the boy and protect her.

She calls the name and a blond boy starts walking forward. I start forward, but before I can say a thing, I see Rory, standing perfectly still in his button-up shirt and I stop. Without me, he won’t eat. He’ll have to get tesserae. So will Prim. And I can’t do it. I have to care for Rory and Vick and Posy. They can’t go to the Hunger Games. I can’t let them. So I stand firm.

  
The boy looks pretty dorky, though. I doubt he’ll prove much of a challenge for Katniss.


	2. Saying Goodbye

They always let friends and family say goodbye to the tributes, family first. They have me in a large white room in the Justice building. There is a bench and a door out, to the hallway. I can’t sit still. I pace up and down the halls, waiting for someone to come, so I can see her again, but dreading their arrival, knowing that it will mean saying goodbye. Somewhere, among all the knots in my stomach, there’s a little voice that tells me that she won’t come home.

I feel sick.

She has to come home. I don’t know what my world would be without her. She doesn’t know, but I can’t stand the thought of working in a coal mine. It is only darkness and rock, a rock prison designed to hold us, the prisoners of the Capital. Slowly, I let myself realize that I would have done it for her. If she refused to run away with me, I would gladly go down in the coal mine every day, get sick, die, so long as I could come home to her everyday.

I can feel my fists clenching. It’s not fair. The whole system is broken and flawed and before I can stop myself, I have punched the wall.  
I immediately regret my decision. It is some kind of solid metal and it stings my fist to punch it. But the pain makes me forget the anger. Anger is bad. Anger doesn’t do anything. Anger won’t stop Katniss from dying.

I sit on the bench and close my eyes. When I do, I can see her, young, thirteen or fourteen, laughing at something I said in the forest. She has such a musical laugh. Back then, she didn’t really trust me. She was so used to protecting her mother and Prim by herself. But she learned to trust me. I see her, the way she was, this morning, before the reaping, mocking that stupid Capital accent that Effie Trinket has.

She looks so pretty, so alive, surrounded by the forest.

I see her later this morning, in her stiff blue dress, comforting Prim.

Before I can stop myself, I imagine her standing onstage with that stupid too-excited TV show host, like every other tribute from 12. They always wear black clothing and look like they’ve been killed already. Their dead, hopeless eyes used to haunt me when I was younger. I force myself to imagine Katniss with those dead eyes.

I can’t. Her eyes are always so bright, so full of passion, even when she’s sad or angry. She’s gotten really good at wiping her face clean of any emotion, but she can’t keep it out of her eyes. Her eyes will not die. She will not give up.

She has a chance.

I have to convince her. I know Prim will ask her to fight, and, as I know that, I know Katniss will say anything to reassure her. She’ll promise Prim anything, to fight, to come home, anything, to make her feel okay.

I need to convince her to fight. I stand up again and start pacing. I could try to appeal to her by reminding her of Prim and giving her a reason to fight, but she will already know that. I know I can’t say anything about running, because there are Peacekeepers and probably cameras and I really don’t need more trouble than I’m already in.

When I turn to face the bench again, it hits me. The most valuable thing I could tell her at this point would be strategy. That drunken fool isn’t going to help her at all. I start racing through the arenas in my head, listing the commonalities. God, I wish there would be a forest in the arena. If there is a forest, like the one we hunt in, Katniss has a fighting chance. She can hunt, she can set traps, she can hide.

Behind me, the door opens and a Peacekeeper comes in. He stands to the side, holding it open. I walk through it, and he walks with me, across a large atrium-type space, completely empty, to another white door.

Through it is Katniss. She is sitting on a couch, and my first instinct is to run to her and hold her in my arms, make sure that she is okay, but I hold myself back and open my arms. She comes to me and I can feel her heart beating, quickly, but steadily. She smells like the forest, although there are already unfamiliar scents with hers, soap and disinfectant and Capital stuff.

I would be content with hugging her forever, but she only has an hour and I have no idea how much time is left of that, so I pull back.

“Listen. Getting a knife should be pretty easy, but you’ve got to get your hands on a bow. That’s your best chance.” I tell her. Your only chance. If she gets a bow, she can pick them all off.

“They don’t always have bows.” She protests.

“Then make one.” I say. “Even a weak bow is better than no bow at all.”

She wrinkles her nose in disgust. Her hair is still in the complicated braid from before, although it is starting to fall out.

“I don’t even know if there’ll be wood.” She claims, but I don’t let myself think that. I remember the year where there was no wood and everyone died of cold. That was a boring year.

“There’s always some wood.” I reassure her.

“Yes, there’s usually some.” She says, but her eyes are filled with fear and I know she is just trying to reassure me.

“Katniss.” I say, trying to make her believe she has a chance. “It’s just hunting. You’re the best hunter I know.”

“It’s not just hunting.” She says. “They’re armed. They think.” She tries to turn away from me, but I grab her arm.

“So do you. And you’ve had more practice. Real practice. You know how to kill.”

“Not people.”

Immediately, I think of Effie Trinket, in all her color and prissiness. She would be an easy kill. I would not regret killing her. “How different can it be, really?” I ask.

I hear their footsteps from behind me and I grab Katniss’s hand and spin around. “Please,” I beg, hearing that my voice is too loud in the little room. “Please, just one more minute.”

The one closest to me grabs my shoulder and tugs me away from her. I try to fight him, to keep holding Katniss’s hand.

“Don’t let them starve!” She calls out, as three more white bodies push me back.

“I won’t! You know I won’t!.” They have me in the hallway. “Katniss, remember I-” The door slams shut and I know it’s soundproof, completely. The sentence isn’t worth completing, but my mouth forms the words anyway.

“I love you.”


	3. The Tribute Parade

It has been one day since the Reaping. Today, we get to see the opening ceremonies, the parade and the opening speeches. We get out early from the coal mine to celebrate and prepare.

Today was my first day in the coal mine. It is as bad as I thought it would be. It’s suffocating. It feels like a cage. I feel the dust in my lungs, even now, while I’m an hour deep in the forest and sitting up on a tree branch. It feels like it’s choking me.

Rory and Vick don’t get out from school early, though. I have a few hours to myself. I’ve already checked my traps twice, and I can tell by the way the sun is low in the sky that I only have a few minutes before I have to show up.

The opening ceremony is not as big as the Reaping, not here. I’ve heard that they have huge celebrations in the Capital. Here, like everything else related to the Games, the opening ceremony is mandatory viewing. We have to watch it in a huge square near the Justice Building. Everyone has to check in.

Right now, I can’t think of sitting in the square, watching Katniss and the dorky boy on parade. I don’t know what they’ll be wearing, but I know it’ll be something with coal. I hope not the coal mine uniform, like they did that year when the stylist overdosed midway through the Games.

Not thinking, I drop to the ground, trying to find some way to escape my thoughts. Luckily, I was smart enough to pick a branch that was not far off the ground, close enough to jump to. Unluckily, I roll my ankle when I land, meaning that I have to limp all the way back to the fence.

Once I get to the Square, I spot my mom and Posey sitting on the ground and Rory and Vick sitting separately with their school friends. For about a second, I scanned for Katniss, but she wasn’t there. We usually watch together and talk about the stupid costumes. I see Prim, sitting with her mother, who has tear stains under her eyes, and I know where I’m going to sit for the show. Prim looks up as I approach. Her eyes are red as well, but less so.

The stupid guy who is only on TV during the Games showed up, this time in blue.

“Hello Panem!” He said him in his stupid accent. “Welcome to the coverage of the 74th Annual Hunger Games! I’m sure you all are very excited for the parade to start. For those of you just joining us, here’s what you missed.”

The screen cuts from his face to some pictures of some celebrities that the Capital might care about, but no one in the Districts does. I can hear Prim sniffling next to me, but Mrs. Everdeen does not do anything to help her. I remember Katniss telling me, once we started trusting each other, that, when her father died, her mother just completely shut down and refused to comfort her or Prim.  I know she would want me to help Prim somehow.

The woman on the screen is wearing a bright red dress with a green tint to her skin. I leaned over to Prim, careful to keep looking at the screen so that she couldn’t tell that I could see her crying.

“Do you think she saw how ugly that dress is and just got sick?” I whispered to her.

Prim smiled, slightly, but enough to tell that I had a chance at cheering her up.

The next man who came on-screen amid Caesar's blathering was wearing some sort of fabric over his butt that made his butt look bigger.  
I tried the stupid Capitol accent that Katniss always laughed at. “Oh, today I think I’ll see how big my butt can be.”

Prim actually laughed out loud at that. Her mother didn’t look over, staring blankly at the screen as it cut back to the announcer.

“And now…” He said. “The tributes!”

The first pair to come out wear some sort of pink fur. They look ridiculous, but I know District 1. They might be hard for her to kill.

The next boy worries me. He is wearing a suit of armor that’s made out of gold and he looks tough. I shudder to think of Katniss fighting him. She's fast, but she doesn't have the strength that he does. She'll have to pick him off from a distance. 

Prim and I watch the rest of the people come out, still making jokes, and by the eleventh district tributes, she has completely forgotten that she was crying before.

“Hold on,” The announcer says. “Are they on fire?”

They cut to a wide shot of Katniss and the blond boy, and they are definitely on fire. For a second, I’m concerned, but obviously, it couldn’t be a painful fire. The Capital would never allow something bad to happen to their precious tributes.

Prim says something about fire, but I’m not paying attention. All I can see is the blond boy and Katniss’s hands intertwined, not publicly, so that everyone can see it, but quietly, almost out of sight. She looks like she depends on his hand for strength.

I can feel the smile drop off my face.

Prim looks up at me and I try to fake smile, just barely quickly enough to cover it. “She looks tough, doesn’t she?”

“Don’t worry.” Prim says, seeing through the smile. “It’s just a strategy, right?”

“Of course.” I tell her.


End file.
